The 404 Media Podcast Exposing the People Behind Deepfake Porn Sites with Bellingcat Investigator Kolina Koltai
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Jan 26, 2026 
Kolina Koltai, Bellingcat investigator who tracks the people and systems behind non-consensual deepfake porn. She recounts tracing operators using OSINT and payment forensics. She reveals how sites were linked to specific individuals and what happens when those services are taken offline. Discussion covers scale, profits, and the need for legal and financial pressure to curb harm.
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From Aircraft Safety To Deepfake Investigations
- Kolina describes a winding career from aircraft-safety research to studying vaccine misinformation and finally AI harms at Bellingcat.
- She calls her move into deepfake investigations a fluke driven by seeing AI image generation's real-world harms.
Deepfake Porn Is The Immediate AI Harm
- Kolina says the biggest harm from AI image generation has been non-consensual deepfake pornography, not just misinformation.
- She sees deepfake porn as a larger immediate societal harm than many predicted AI misinformation vectors.
Start With Domain And Company Records
- Use domain WHOIS and domain-history tools to find early registration metadata linking sites to businesses or people.
- Check UK Companies House and public registries to corroborate company ownership tied to domains.